Salome: Tears of the Goddess
Chapter 6
by
Albertina
Teaser: This is a Logan comicverse story, more or less, that doesn't fit into continuity. It just has some characters in it that I wanted to have skulking around the X-mansion so I put them in there.
Some of the highlights include: Nightcrawler, Cyclops, Gambit, and Wolvie go to a mutant strip club; Logan does his impression of a chicken; X-men throw a b'day party for Logan; and lots of sexual tension between Logan and an original female character. Oh-yeah- also some butt-kicking action. My first attempt at it. Feedback would be much appreciated.
Note: The best lines in this story are taken from the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament.
Hours later, Magdalene wakes to the sight of Logan seated at the foot of the bed, smoking a cigar.
"Logan?" she says, blearily. "Oh, my head is throbbing."
"I'll bet."
"How did I get here?"
"I carried you out of that wacky outfit."
"Oh...shit, you did what?"
"You heard me."
She tries to sit up.
"I thought I'd probably be dead. I was sure that he would kill me."
"Why's that?"
"He thinks he owns me. I was ready for that. You saved me, I guess. My hero," she says with a small laugh.
"Who was that nut?"
"A guy I used to know."
"Who were the others?"
"A bunch of mutants."
"I gathered that much."
She manages to sit up.
"I'm so tired. I've never been so tired."
He glares at her.
"You have some explaining to do, darlin.' Now 'fess up."
"Oh, Logan. I'm so tired."
"You've been silent long enough. I'm sick of it. Now, you're going to tell me what that was all about and you're going to tell me right now."
"How much time do you have?"
"Enough. Whatever it takes."
She sighs deeply. Her eyes fill. She sniffs and turns her face to the ceiling but the amber tears fall down her face and on to the sheets.
"I can't get used to that," he says, looking at them lying on the bed.
He rises and sits on the edge of the bed. He picks her tears up and holds them in the palm of his hand. He puts them in his pocket.
"Why'd you do that?"
"A memento. In case you go and do something stupid like that again and get yourself killed."
She smiles at him through the tears that begin to fall unhindered now.
"Oh, Logan."
He pulls her to him and holds her, one hand on the back of her head. He presses his lips onto the top of her head.
"It's okay, darlin.' I'm not mad at you. I don't know what the hell you are but I like what I see. I can't help it."
He pulls away from her and looks into her face. He bends down and tastes her mouth. She draws a breath sharply, with surprise. His hands caress her arms, slide up them to bury themselves in her hair. He pushes her gently onto the bed, his hand sliding underneath the thin cotton shift. He groans and covers her mouth again as he probes the warmth between her legs, over her gown. She cries out and her luminosity glows in the darkness again. He pulls his hand away and draws away from her.
"Talk first. Play later."
"Don't...don't stop."
"No, darlin', we've got plenty of time for all that." He holds her face and smiles at her.
"You were so beautiful up there. So beautiful."
He groans and stretches.
"These pants have become powerfully uncomfortable," he mutters.
She looks young again, and vulnerable.
"I'm waiting," he says.
She takes a deep breath.
"I first met him when I was about fifteen. I was living on the streets. It was a terrible life. One I'd like to forget. He took me away from all that, brought me to his house. I found out later that he'd bought me from my father. He found him, my father, that is, and paid him for me. He thought he owned me. I guess I believed that, too. At least for awhile.
He sold me all this crap about how he ran a home for mutants like me. How he cared for them, loved them like his children, and provided a safe haven for them. Well, I proved to be a powerful person to have around. At least, he thought so. We'd have this big prayer meetings, like the one you saw, and he'd shoot the bull for hours. He started to single me out. He named me Magdalene, said I was his favorite disciple, his angel. He'd have me stand up there and force the others to feel peaceful, docile, and willing.
They started to worship me like a goddess. They'd once been my friends but now they treated me like their queen. Untouchable. I think I half-believed them. I wanted to believe them. No one, not even my own parents, had thought me worth much. I welcomed their adoration, even though it made me feel lonelier than I'd ever felt.
He started to keep me locked away. He began to be more and more possessive. It was my life force he said. He was addicted to it, addicted to the power that I willingly relinquished to him. But somewhere inside me I resented it. I burned for their worship but another part of me hated the loneliness and the solitude. I couldn't shake the feeling that this all wasn't real.
Still, Messiah talked at me constantly, telling me things I wanted to hear and didn't want to hear. He said I was a part of his Big Plan for us, for all mutants, that I was second only to him.
I realize now that I hated it all along. I hated most how I gloried in it.
He began to suspect my dissatisfaction with the whole lot of them, and he made a fatal error. He tried to imprison me in that house. He wouldn't let me leave, wouldn't let me talk to anyone at all.
So, one day, I asked one of the others to let me out. It was some young kid, who thought he was in love with me. I talked him into letting me out of my room and I left. I figured I'd never see them again. I wonder what happened to that kid. I never found out.
And the rest is about what you'd expect. I wandered here and there, doing whatever I could for as long as I could stand it. I don't know how long I was with them. Time wasn't important then. It must have been many years. And, then, I found you and the others, this place. I didn't know a place like this existed. I've never met anyone like the professor and you and the others.
I'd always been so self-centered, so selfish, and angry at the world. Several times I thought about suicide. There didn't seem to be a place for me in the world. No reason for me to live.
What do you do when you're told you're a goddess and then you discover you're just a girl.
I thought it would drive me crazy. Sometimes, I think it will drive me crazy.
Logan stirs and takes her hand into his.
"Why did you go back, darlin'?" he says, softly.
She looks at him.
"The whole time you were gone I thought about you and the other X-men. How you risk your lives for other mutants and for other humans. You don't know how different you all are, so unselfish. When I came here I just wanted out of the club. That's all I cared about, all I wanted. I was bored with it. It made me feel so lonely.
And I wanted to see you. When I touched your memories I wanted to know you. Really know you. And the others, too. I'd never seen anything like it.
I was so scared the day I knocked on the door. I was terrified that you would send me away, that you would think I was selfish and grasping, all those things about myself that I hated and knew were true.
But, you didn't hate me. You didn't send me away. When you leftI thought I'd driven you away. I began to think that you'd never come back. I thought I didn't deserve you. That I didn't belong here.
I began to think about the others. I don't even know their names. How they were all stuck in that place with an insane man. He calls himself Messiah. Humph. Whatever.
I abandoned them. I just left them there to fend for themselves against a lunatic.
"They chose to be there with that guy, darlin.' They chose to believe all that," he says.
"I know that, but I bear some of the responsibility. No matter how I look at it or try to rationalize itI'm responsible to some degree. I thought about all that while you were gone. I finally told Remy. You were right about him. He understands.
"Yup, he's been there," Logan says. "Everyone would understand."
"You think? You're probably right. I can see that now."
She sighs deeply. She looks exhausted.
"So I went back. I knew where to find him. I didn't know he was so close. He's just a normal man, a human, you know. I think he wants desperately to be a mutant. He's satisfied himself with being a cult leader, I suppose.
"He looks like the living dead."
"He has cancer. He'll die one day."
"That must be why he loved you, darlin.' You're a pistol."
I don't think of that as love. I don't think I know what love is."
"You're learning."
She is looking at him. He looks back at her.
"Yes, I think I am. I'm sorry, Logan. I didn't know any other way. I wanted to give them hope."
"I know, darlin,' I know."
Desire stirs in him again. She's wearing only the thin worn gown, underneath is her warm skin. She looks pale, though. He stays where he is.
"You need to rest, now," he says, getting up and pulling the covers up to her shoulders. "I'll just tuck you in."
"Stay with me."
"That's not a good idea, darlin.'"
"I didn't mean-"
"I know what you meant. I'll just curl up over in this chair here."
He rises and sits in the chair.
After a while, he hears her breathing deeply and regularly. She's asleep. He watches her sleeping. She looks so young. Maybe everyone looks younger when they sleep. Maybe even he does, although he doubted it.
After an hour, he rises and leaves the room to go outside for a smoke.
She seemed older to him. Ever since his return she'd seemed older to him. Something, a look in her eye, the way she walked, it was hard to pin down.
Her story had pierced him. He'd heard so many stories like it, but each one had its own particular sting to it. Hers was no different.
He thought of her ablaze, when she danced on fire. It was almost like she was two different women. She was two different women. One lofty and unreachable, the other childish and scared, innocent, running through them both was the real Maggie, the one that she was just beginning to know.
He feels fear for her. She has so much yet to struggle with. The battle waging in her must be brutal.
He knows that feeling. He knows it better than anyone, except maybe Jeannie. He looks up into the stars. Jeannie knows what it's like to fly through them. He wonders what it's like to fly through them but he can't really imagine it.
But she flew close to the sun didn't she? Her wings melted, burned away, and she fell to the earth again. Just a girl, again, just his Jeannie.
That must be what it feels like for Maggie. When she wields her life-force, she must feel practically unstoppable, loving it, hating it, relying on it, wanting to rid herself of it.
He remembers what it's like to be hungry like that. Wanting peace, reassurance, and throwing it away with both hands out of fear.
Fear was a terrible thing. He didn't fear much of anything. Not much at all. Just the one thing he would never be rid ofhimself. His fear. He'd lived with it so long that it was practically like his own shadow. Fear of losing your own judgment, your ability to choose. Isn't that what separates men from animals? Choice. Free will.
And yet, he'd seen man and mutant alike do things that no animal would do. He'd seen unmotivated cruelty, inexplicable brutality. It was during those moments that the distinctions became so fine he lost his grasp on them entirely.
Before he came to the X-men, he never bothered his head with thoughts like these. No, not until friendship, and love, and purpose forced him to deal with it. It'd put his head in a fine muddle, sometimes it still did.
That must be how she felt, now. He wonders what thoughts she's turning over in her head right now, while she sleeps. He wonders what she's dreaming about.
It's lonely and terrifying, he thinks, to believe that you are subject to no one and nothing. She's realizing that now. That is where true grace lies and she has that in her. She can hear it now. It must be singing within her, mingling with her blood, coursing through the chambers of her heart.
He looks up at his bedroom window. The curtains are drawn. As he watches, her radiance begins to push against the windowpane.
He smiles. She must be dreaming sweet dreams.
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